SkillWalls - a reusable room divider
Replacing single-use plasterboard partition walls
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Rendered interior view of the SkillWalls honeycomb-panel partition dividing an open-plan flat
- Context
- Green Entrepreneurship, DTU
- Year
- 2021
- Role
- Prototyping, pitching and researching (jointly)
- Team size
- 6
- Tools
- Granta EduPack · Life cycle thinking · User interviews · Workshop facilitation · Business plan
- Contribution
- Team of 6, jointly responsible for prototyping, pitching and researching
A fully reusable modular partition wall for rented homes, built in order to be installed and removed without tools, tradespeople or a single mark on the room, since Denmark throws away an estimated 18,000 tonnes of gypsum a year.
The problem
Temporary plasterboard partitions are put up by tradespeople and torn down again when tenants move out, and the gypsum is rarely recycled properly, which means it gets burned while new board is manufactured in order to replace it. This process contributes significantly to water toxicity, and in Denmark alone an estimated 18,000 tonnes of gypsum goes to waste annually, which is why we targeted UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.5 on waste reduction.
The product
Three components, being a horizontal aluminium rail fixed to ceiling and floor with heavy double-sided adhesive plates, polypropylene honeycomb panels, and a vertical aluminium rail holding the panels against the horizontal rail. There are no screws, which means no holes and no marks, and this is the condition that makes it acceptable to a landlord in the first place. Furthermore the honeycomb core keeps the wall light while improving the sound insulation, and it comes apart as quickly as it goes up, so that a broken element can be replaced rather than the whole wall.
Where the idea came from
The concept came out of interviews with five carpenters, a DTU lecturer in life cycle assessment, and a workshop with four people who had put up their own partition wall, and it is important to note that most of the concept came from the workshop rather than from the expert interviews.
The business model
Sold to landlords for rental properties, offered to private customers as either a one-off purchase or a rental, and collected and disassembled free of charge when it is no longer needed, so that the wall re-enters use rather than waste. This means no firing and no toxic residue, while material is saved on every reuse.
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Physical prototype of the aluminium rail and honeycomb panel assembly on a workshop floor
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Granta EduPack chart plotting price per compressive strength against density for candidate panel materials
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Patrick pitching SkillWalls in front of the project's pull-up banner
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The SkillWalls team of six on stage at the Green Entrepreneurship pitch, DTU Green Challenge